St Patrick, the patron saint of engineers

16 March 2017

All over the world, every year on March 17, towns and cities celebrate St Patrick’s Day. The day is a celebration of St Patrick, who is not only the patron saint of Ireland but the patron saint of engineers also

St Patrick is recognised globally as the patron saint of Ireland, but what many people don’t know is that St Patrick is also the patron saint of engineers.

All over the world, every year on March 17, towns and cities celebrate St Patrick’s Day. As part of this year’s celebrations, 150 iconic landmarks and sites will be illuminated in green over the coming days. These sites include the Colosseum in Rome, the Sacré Cœur basilica in Paris and Edinburgh Castle for the first time ever – as well as the Great Wall of China, Niagara Falls, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro and the famous ‘Welcome’ sign in Las Vegas.

Although many are familiar with the tale of St Patrick driving the snakes from Ireland, it is also claimed that he was instrumental in the initial construction of Irish clay churches in the 5th century A.D. St Patrick has also been credited with teaching the Irish to build arches of lime mortar instead of dry masonry. It was these achievements that led to him becoming the patron saint of engineers.

Students of the College of Engineering at the University of Missouri (Mizzou) claim that, in 1903, they were the first to discover that St Patrick was an engineer.

For over 100 years, Mizzou engineering students have celebrated St Patrick’s Day as a holiday set aside for engineers. This celebration has now developed into a nine-day-long annual Engineers Week event which includes several century old traditions: Missouri’s engineer’s song, the St Patrick’s ball and the discovery of the Blarney stone.

On the Friday of Engineers Week at the University of Missouri, St Patrick himself makes an appearance on campus in order to perform the ceremony which makes qualified engineering students knights of St Patrick. These students have made notable contributions to the Engineering Club. As a result of this celebration, the shamrock and St Patrick have become icons of the Mizzou’s College of Engineering.

St Patrick is recognised globally as the patron saint of Ireland, but what many people don’t know is that St Patrick is also the patron saint of engineers.
All over the world, every year on March 17, towns and cities celebrate St Patrick’s Day. As part of this year’s celebrations,...

Perhaps I’ve had this mortal coil for too long Chris, but if the world is spinning at about 1600 kph while going round the sun at approximately 100,000 kph and our solar system travels round the Milky Way at 828,000 kph, which itself travels through space at roughly 2,140,000 kph then, I for one, am glad that “someone’s” at the helm!
QED!

I transitioned from the military as a Naval Flight Officer into an engineering program. Before I entered the program, I believed in God. After I graduated with Highest Honors, I still believed in God. If you would like other examples of really smart people who believed in God, just start with Isaac Newton. Read his Principia Mathematica, just the Prolegomena.

Chris, some thinkers might suggest something else: that anyone “who understands life on this planet” would not “go along” so quickly with someone who so readily, and seemingly from the outset, dismisses a very important premise of an argument which may lead to the conclusion that one can “understand” life in the first place, or that life is intelligible (i.e. can be understood, or made sense of): the existence of an intelligent mind/being which created life and the universe. Science would then be very helpful in understanding or making more sense of what we observe and experience in the universe.

If this being existed, and we know science observes what is physical, it could not itself be physical – as it cannot be a part of its own creation! Therefore, science would not necessarily be able to prove its existence (it’s hard enough to *prove* anything – ask the mathematicians!), while simultaneously not necessarily invalidating its existence.

But I digress, as this would be a LONG and interesting conversation, indeed. 🙂

I’m an atheist and an engineer, but I would say that any engineer that understands life on this planet and follows the scientific method cannot flat out say that God exists, or that it doesn’t exist. I have faith in the void as a priest has faith in God, but, scientifically speaking, neither of us has a fucking clue of what’s going on, really.

The main engineering campus of the University of Missouri is in Rolla, not Columbia. and, after a couple of name changes, is now the Missouri Institute of Science and Technology.
I got my BS in 1969 and my MS in 1974.

St Thomas also demanded proof of the resurrection of Christ! For those demanding proof of existence of God and how God influences what is, engineers do, just look at the order of things. That is why we can put equations together. Not a mere coincidence

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